Annie Dillard
| birth_place = Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States | death_date = | death_place = | occupation = | nationality = American | period = 1974–present | genre = Nonfiction, fiction, poetry | subject = | movement = | notableworks =''Pilgrim at Tinker Creek''; Holy the Firm; For the Time Being; An American Childhood; The Maytrees | awards = 1975 - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | influences = | influenced = | signature = | website = }} Annie Dillard (born April 30, 1945) is an American poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning non-fiction author, best known for her narrative prose. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Life An American childhood Annie Dillard was the oldest of 3 daughters in her family. Early childhood details can be drawn from Annie Dillard's autobiography, An American Childhood (1987), about growing up in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh. It starts in 1950 when she was 5. Like Russell Baker's Growing Up, Dillard's memoir An American Childhood focuses on her parents and some of her intellectual enthusiasms rather than on herself. She grew up in Pittsburgh in the fifties in "a house full of comedians.""An American Childhood by Annie Dillard". The Washington Post Book Club. August 1, 2004 She describes her mother as an energetic non-conformist. Her father taught her many useful subjects such as plumbing, economics, and the intricacies of the novel On The Road. She describes in An American Childhood reading a wide variety of subjects including: geology, natural history, entomology, epidemiology, and poetry, among others. Influential books from her youth were: The Natural Way to Draw and Field Book of Ponds and Streams.Dillard, An American Childhood, p. 81 Her days were filled with exploring, piano and dance classes, rock and bug collecting, drawing, and reading books from the public library including natural history and military history, such as World War II. As a child, Dillard attended Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, though her parents did not attend.Dillard, An American Childhood, p. 195 She spent four summers at the First Presbyterian Church (FPC) Camp in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.Dillard, Annie. "Seeing" in Albanese, Catherine L.; American Spiritualiaties: A Reader; p. 440. ISBN 0-253-33839-5. As an adolescent she quit attending church because of "hypocrisy." When she told her minister of her decision, she was given 4 volumes of C.S. Lewis's broadcast talks, from which she appreciated that author's philosophy on suffering, but elsewhere found the topic inadequately addressed.Dillard, An American Childhood, p. 228 Education She attended Pittsburgh Public Schools until 5th grade, and then The Ellis School until college. Dillard attended Hollins College (now Hollins University), in Roanoke, Virginia, where she studied literature and creative writing. She married her writing teacher, poet R.H.W. Dillard, 10 years her senior. Of her college experience, Dillard stated: "In college I learned how to learn from other people. As far as I was concerned, writing in college didn’t consist of what little Annie had to say, but what Wallace Stevens had to say. I didn’t come to college to think my own thoughts, I came to learn what had been thought."Lawrence, Malcolm. (April 30, 1982). "Tete a Tete: Lunch with Annie Dillard". Towerofbabel.com. Retrieved December 1, 2011. In 1968 she earned an M.A. in English. Her thesis on Henry David Thoreau showed how Walden Pond functioned as "the central image and focal point for Thoreau's narrative movement between heaven and earth." Career Dillard spent the first few years after graduation oil painting, writing, and keeping a journal. Several of her poems and short stories were published, and during this time she also worked for Johnson's Anti-Poverty Program. Dillard taught for 21 years in the English department of Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Connecticut. Private life In 1975, she and poet R.H.W. Dillard divorced amicably, and she moved from Roanoke to Lummi Island near Bellingham, Washington. She taught at Western Washington University (WWU) part-time as a writer in residence. She later married Gary Clevidence, an anthropology professor at WWU's Fairhaven College; they have a daughter, Cody Rose.Cantwell, Mary. (April 26, 1992). "A Pilgrim's Progress". The New York Times. Retrieved December 1, 2011. For over 2 decades, she has been married to historical biographer Robert D. Richardson, whom she met after sending him a fan letter about his book Henry Thoreau: A life of the mind. After college Dillard says she became "spiritually promiscuous". Her 1st prose book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, makes references not only to Christ and the Bible, but also to Judaism, Buddhism, Sufism, and Inuit spirituality. Dillard converted to Roman Catholicism, and in 1994 won the Campion Award, given to a Catholic writer every year by the editors of America.Smith, Leanne E. (February 25, 2010). "Annie Dillard (1945– )". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved November 30, 2011. However, her personal website lists her religion as "none." Her website sells her paintings to benefit a charity called Partners in Health. Dr. Paul Farmer founded the charity to rid the world of infectious disease."Annie Dillard Official Website". Retrieved December 1, 2011. Writing Dillard's books have been translated into at least 10 languages. Her works have been compared to those by Virginia Woolf, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson, William Blake, and John Donne. She cites Henry James, Thomas Hardy, and Ernest Hemingway as a few of her all-time favorite authors.Suh, Grace. (October 4, 1996). "Ideas are Tough; Irony is Easy: Pulitzer Prize-Winner Annie Dillard Speaks". The Yale Herald. Retrieved December 1, 2011. ''Tickets for a Prayer Wheel'' In her first book of poems Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974), Dillard first articulated themes that she would later explore in other works of prose."Books by Annie Dillard". Annie Dillard's Official Website. Retrieved November 30, 2011 ''Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'' In 1971 she read an old writer's nature book and thought, "I can do better than this." Dillard's journals served as a source for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), a nonfiction narrative about the natural world near her home in Roanoke, Virginia. Although the book contains named chapters, it is not (as some critics assumed) a collection of essays. Early chapters were published in The Atlantic, Harpers, and Sports Illustrated. The book describes God by studying creation, leading one critic to call her "one of the foremost horror writers of the 20th Century." In The New York Times, Eudora Welty said the work was "admirable writing" that reveals "a sense of wonder so fearless and unbridled... an intensity of experience that she seems to live in order to declare," but "I honestly don't know what Dillard is talking about at... times."Welty, Eudora. (March 24, 1974). "Meditation on Seeing". The New York Times. Retrieved November 30, 2011. ''Holy the Firm'' One day, Dillard decided to begin a project in which she would write about whatever happened on the island within a three-day time period. When a plane crashed on the second day, Dillard began to contemplate the problem of pain, and God's allowance of "natural evil to happen". Although Holy the Firm (1977) was only 66 pages long, it took her 14 months, writing full-time, to complete the manuscript. In The New York Times Book Review novelist Frederick Buechner called it "A rare and precious book." While other contemporary reviewers wondered whether she was under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, Dillard denies it. ''Teaching a Stone to Talk'' Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982) is her sole book of short nonfiction narrative essays and travels. Out of the 14 essays, "Life on the Rocks: The Galapagos" won the New York Women's Press Club award, and "The Eclipse" was chosen for Best Essays of the Twentieth Century. As Dillard herself notes, "'The Weasel' is lots of fun; the much-botched church service is (I think) hilarious." ''Living by Fiction'' In Living by Fiction (1982), Dillard produced her "theory about why flattening of character and narrative cannot happen in literature as it did when the visual arts rejected deep space for the picture plane." She later said that, in the process of writing this book, she talked herself into writing an old-fashioned novel. ''Encounters with Chinese Writers'' Encounters with Chinese Writers (1984) is a work of journalism. One part takes place in China, where Dillard was member of a delegation of 6 American writers and publishers following the fall of the Gang of Four. In the 2nd half, Dillard hosts a group of Chinese writers, whom she takes to Disneyland along with Alan Ginsberg. Dillard describes it as "hilarious". ''The Writing Life'' The Writing Life (1989) is a collection of short essays in which Dillard "discusses with clear eye and wry wit how, where and why she writes".Dillard, The Writing Life, back cover The Boston Globe called it "a kind of spiritual Strunk & White, a small and brilliant guidebook to the landscape of a writer's task." The Chicago Tribune wrote that, "For nonwriters, it is a glimpse into the trials and satisfactions of a life spent with words. For writers, it is a warm, rambling conversation with a stimulating and extraordinarily talented colleague." The Detroit News called it "a spare volume...that has the power and force of a detonating bomb." ''The Living'' Dillard's debutt novel, The Living (1992) centers around the earliest European settlers of the Pacific Northwest coast. While writing the book, she restricted herself from reading works that postdated the time in which The Living was set, nor did she use anachronistic words. ''Mornings Like This'' Mornings Like This (1995) is a book dedicated to found poetry. Dillard took and arranged phrases from various old books, creating poems that are often ironic in tone. The poems are not related to the original books' themes. "A good trick should look hard and be easy," said Dillard. "These poems were a bad trick. They look easy and are really hard." ''For the Time Being'' For the Time Being (1999) is a work of narrative nonfiction. Its topics mirror the various chapters of the book and include "birth, sand, China, clouds, numbers, Israel, encounters, thinker, evil, and now." In her own words on this book, she writes, "I quit the Catholic Church and Christianity; I stay near Christianity and Hasidism." ''The Maytrees'' The Maytrees (2007) is Dillard's 2nd novel. The story, which begins after World War II, tells of a lifelong love between a husband and wife who live in Provincetown, Cape Cod. It was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2008. Recogntion Dillard's 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, made Random House's survey of the century's 100 best nonfiction books. The Los Angeles Times' survey of the century's 100 best Western novels includes The Living. The century's 100 best spiritual books (edited by Philip Zaleski) also includes Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The 100 best essays (edited by Joyce Carol Oates) includes "Total Eclipse," from Teaching a Stone to Talk. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, in 1999, and For the Time Being, in 2002, both won the Maurice-Edgar Coindreau Prize for Best Translation in English, both translated by Sabine Porte."Curriculum Vitae". Annie Dillard's Official Website. Retrieved December 1, 2011. In 2000, Dillard's For the Time Being received the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. PEN American Center, http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/288 To celebrate its tricentennial, Boston commissioned Sir Michael Tippett to compose a symphony. He based part of its text on Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In 2005, artist Jenny Holzer used all of An American Childhood to stream, letter by letter, vertically, in lights, at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, as an installation.Artist Lecture with Jenny Holzer Publications Poetry *''Tickets for a Prayer Wheel''. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1974. *''Mornings Like This: Found poems''. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Novels *''The Living''. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. *''The Maytrees''. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Non-fiction *''Pilgrim at Tinker Creek''. New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1974. **The 1999 Harper Perennial 25th-Anniversary edition includes an afterword by Dillard. **The 2007 edition includes a short second afterword. *''Holy the Firm''. New York: Harper and Row, 1977. **Revised version printed in The Annie Dillard Reader. *''Living by Fiction''. New York: Harper and Row, 1982. *''Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters'' (essays). New York: Harper and Row, 1982. *''Encounters with Chinese Writers''. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984. *''An American Childhood'' (memoir). New York: Harper and Row, 1987. *''The Writing Life''. New York: Harper and Row, 1989. Revised edition published by Harper Perennial in 1998. * The Annie Dillard Reader. New York: HarperCollins, 1994, 1995. Readings selected by the author, some rewritten. Dillard requests on her website that these be "used for the latest (short) texts." *''For the Time Being''. New York: Knopf, 1999. (Final volume of a nonfiction trilogy that began with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and continued with Holy the Firm.) Edited *''The Best American Essays, 1988'' (guest editor). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988. *''Modern American Memoirs'' (edited with Cort Conley). New York: HarperCollins, 1995. * The Nature Reader (edited by Daniel Halpern and Dan Frank. Advisory editors: Annie Dillard, Gretel Erlich, Jim Harrison, John Hay, Edward Hoagland, Barry, Lopez, David Quammen, and Terry Tempest Williams). Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1996. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy The Annie Dillard Log.Jonas Gardsby, Bibliography, The Annie Dillard Log. Blogspot, Web, Nov. 20, 2012. See also * List of U.S. poets References * * * Notes External links ;Poems *Annie Dillard at PoemHunter (1 poem, "Mayakofsky in New York: A found poem") *Annie Dillard at the Poetry Foundation ;Audio / video *Annie Dillard at YouTube * NPR: Tsunami Commentary: Dots In Blue Water (Audio) * [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10532320 NPR: Excerpt: The Maytrees, read by Annie Dillard] ;Books *Annie Dillard at Amazon.com * * The Annie Dillard Log (comprehensive bibliography; extensive list of links, blurbs, and public appearances) ;About *Annie Dillard at NNDB. *Annie Dillard biography * Annie Dillard Official website. * [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062101900_pf.html Washington Post: In Conversation With Annie Dillard] * [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/books/25gree.html?ex=1183867200&en=73957c21d752b9b2&ei=5070 New York Times review of The Maytrees] *"The Ecotheology of Annie Dillard: A study in ambivalence" at Cross Currents Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:People from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:American essayists Category:American memoirists Category:American nature writers Category:American novelists Category:Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction winners Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Category:Alumni of women's universities and colleges Category:Writers from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Category:Hollins University alumni Category:Wesleyan University faculty Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:American poets Category:American women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Women poets